which, despite its insistence, does not militate satisfactory way of getting the material to the in favor of their own best interests, has its students. Screening it for your un• literary roots in the fiction of Charles Dickens dergraduates, however, does not constitute a (whose Oliver Twist Parr cites in the valid excuse for skipping the book yourself. bibliography) rather than in that of Lucy Maud Montgomery (whose Anne of Green Gables she also cites). It is a book that ends rather than Janice Dickin McGinnis concludes. At the risk of being accused of Concordia University asking for one of those up-beat endings usually insisted upon by editors of women's magazines, I would have liked a conclusion comparing the lives of these children with those COMRADE AND LOVER: Rosa of their Canadian contemporaries and with the lives they might have expected to live had they Luxemburg's Letters to Leo remained in Britain. Parr does, in her first Jogiches. chapter, give an outline of the type of life Edited and translated by ELZBIETA working class British urban children would live ETTINGER. assuming that their families held together; she Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, does not expand on what type of life they might 1979. have led had this not been the case, had there been no homes of refuge to take them in and had their been no child migration movement. Comrade and Lover gives a spontaneous inside glimpse into Rosa Luxemburg, a woman of Labouring Children is a good read. It is also impressive public accomplishments. She meticulously researched (from documentary climbed to a position of international leader• and quantitative data) and intelligently writ• ship in the European socialist movement, ten. Unfortunately the wide readership which reached thousands of people with her articles, such a description might imply is likely to be speeches and brochures, and is still, sixty years limited by the price of the volume—an ap• after her death, to be found on most Marxist palling $25.95 for a neat, nicely illustrated bookshelves. She fought for her beliefs with package of 181 pages. Although hard-core courage. She stood up in a world of men and academics have brought themselves around to outshone them. Her letters show the strength, paying these prices to get useful information clarity and tenacity which put her in that onto their shelves, it is not something that is position. They also reveal a woman divided by likely to go over with the reading public. Nor is internal conflict, doubt and low self-esteem. it something that can be asked of students. For• tunately, Parr has produced a practical Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1870 in solution to this last problem in the form of Poland. She grew up at a time when her coun• "The British Child Migration Movement," try was going through a process of rapid in• volume 33 of the National Museum/National dustrialization under Russian domination. She Film Board series, Canada's Visual History. saw the desperate poverty of the working class, Although, because of limitations of medium, the new wealth of the leisure class, and the not as rich as Labouring Children, this set of brutality of the Czarist police as they put down slides and its accompanying text offer a strikes and nationalist demonstrations. By the time she graduated from high school, she was time, she had a taste of the settled home life she active in the socialist movement, and two years craved. It was not happy. Both were relieved later, fled the Czarist police by moving to Swit• when the 1905 revolution in Russia took zerland. There, in 1890, she met Leo Jogiches, Jogiches to Poland to work in the underground a political exile from Lithuania. He recognized of the Polish Social Democratic Party. Again, her ability and became her mentor, critic and his jealousy of Luxemburg was obvious. He lover. He pushed her on to the path which took would tell her nothing of what he was doing her into the top rank of European socialist although she implored him to share it with her. leadership. They also entered into a struggle He guarded "his" territory from her in• with one another, a conflict of hate, love, terference. When she paid him a surprise visit dependence and independence, which lasted in Poland, he was furious. In March, 1906, the rest of their lives. they were arrested together while on vacation. She spent three months in prison, then re• turned to Berlin, free on bail. Jogiches was sen• A year after meeting, they founded the tenced to eight years hard labour. He escaped a Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, year later and returned to Berlin, but Luxem• the Polish Marxist party which was the burg had broken with him and taken another forerunner of the modern Polish government. lover. They lived within walking distance of one another in Zurich. At the age of 23, Luxem• burg spoke at the Third Congress of the Letters during the period of this split are Socialist International and created a sensation. business only, even avoiding personal A year later she became editor of the Social pronouns. The 1905 revolution had created a Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland's jour• split between Luxemburg and the German nal and went to Paris to work on it and her Social Democratic Party. She became very doctoral dissertation. At the age of 28, her isolated. In 1907, she accepted a position dissertation completed and in process of teaching economics and spent two months in publication, she moved to Berlin to be at the prison for "inciting the German people to centre of the socialist movement, leaving violence," a result of her urging the German Jogiches behind in Zurich. The pain of this working people to follow the Russians' exam• decision shows through in the letters. She knew ple. From 1908 to 1914, she wrote two books that her rising career and the separation would and hundreds of pamphlets, speeches and ar• endanger the relationship with the jealous and ticles. She became the founder of the German ambitious Jogiches, but she was determined to Communist Party. continue the work which drew her so strongly. Her most urgent concern was the rise of Within six months, Luxemburg had made a militarism in Germany during those years. She name for herself in the German Social accused the German government of dragging Democratic Party and began her rise to in• its people into a war which would benefit only ternational fame. Meanwhile she struggled the wealthy industrialists. Her fondest hope with Jogiches' harshness and jealousy, her was that the working people of the European mother's death, her father's failing health, her nations would see that the war was not in their own overwork and frequent illness. Finally, af• interest and refuse to be turned against one ter much urging from Luxemburg, Jogiches another. She worked hard to reach thousands joined her in Berlin in 1900 and, for the first of people with this message. In February 1914, she stood trial for inciting to public disobedien• She suffered much of his harsh treatment ce. She was not imprisoned, but stood trial herself. In 1900 she wrote: "You feel called again in June 1914 for accusing the army of upon to preach at me and to play the role of my mistreating soldiers. More than one thousand mentor always, no matter what. Your current soldiers came forward to speak for the defense. advice and criticism of my 'activities' go far beyond a close friend's comments—it's just systematic moralizing. God knows, all that's When war broke out, the German Social left for me to do is to shrug my shoulders and Democrats supported it, the people of Ger• cut my letters to minimum lest they provoke many were swallowed with war fever, and further disgusting sermons." An ascetic per• Luxemburg's dream of a united European son, who believed that any happiness or love proletariat died. From 1915 to 1918, she was was time wasted which could have been spent imprisoned for her own protection. She con• on the revolution, Jogiches returned his lover's tinued to write, and Jogiches came back into gifts and withheld affection. He seems to be a her life, taking care of her needs and giving her type of person whom one finds all too often on personal support through the bars of her the left—a humourless, controlling man who prison. In November, 1918, she was freed. She manages to convince people that revolution and Jogiches lived and worked together, would simply be dictatorship by such men. although her previous energy was gone, until she was murdered two months later. Her killers were members of a group which a short On the other hand, Luxemburg was lively, time later became part of Hitler's storm emotional, practical and warm. She saw her troops. Her body was thrown into a canal. own search for happiness as a natural Thousands came to see her empty coffin to the outgrowth of her wish for a social system which grave. Jogiches, determined to bring her mur• would bring satisfaction to everyone. She said derers to trial, was assassinated himself two to him: "I keep harping on the worn out tune, months later. making claims on personal happiness. Yes, I do have an accursed longing for happiness and am ready to haggle for my daily portion with None of the return letters from Jogiches to the stubbornness of a mule.'' Luxemburg have survived, but he comes through Luxemburg's letters as a harsh, un• She railed against his lack of feeling.